


everything is changing/the memories are fading

by Jay-atP (bifangirl)



Series: JatP Character Studies and Oneshots [1]
Category: Julie and The Phantoms (TV)
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, Canonical Character Death, Character Study, Gen, Guilt, Post-Season/Series 01
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-12
Updated: 2020-10-24
Packaged: 2021-03-07 19:55:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,484
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26973253
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bifangirl/pseuds/Jay-atP
Summary: the world was open doors/and now they're shutting in our faces(Character studies for the boys)
Series: JatP Character Studies and Oneshots [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1969225
Comments: 8
Kudos: 84





	1. reggie

**Author's Note:**

> Title is from Don't Fall Asleep by Make Out Monday

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Some days, Reggie can’t even remember if they’d made it to the hospital before they died.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Working title: _just reggie feeling guilt or something, idk_

Some days, Reggie can’t even remember if they’d made it to the hospital before they died. He remembers the ambulance ride with some clarity on most days, the screams of the sirens and the shouts of the paramedics fading out to become background noise because all he can hear is the whispered fear of Alex and the quiet but pained attempts at reassurance from Luke. _(“It’s fine, it’s fine, it’s fine, it’s fine.”)_ He remembers staring at his friends through tears, looking at Alex and Luke and reaching out to them, his arm dropping before he can reach them and _god_ he just wants to hold their hands. _(“Don’t let me die alone,” he whispers to them, and he thinks Luke hears him because he reaches out to grab his hand.)_ And he remembers the order they died, Alex going first, his eyes going blank as he stares at them, Luke second, his hand falling away from Reggie’s. He goes last, the frantic chaos around him fading into a more peaceful darkness as he floats away, weightless. _(“What is this?” he asks the darkness, but there is no response.)_

He remembers the dark room, the sheer _relief_ at seeing his friends again fading away into grief. _(_ _He'd told Alex that street dogs hadn't killed them yet. No, more than that, he'd practically_ promised _that they'd be fine with his words, and look at them now, sitting in a dark room_ dead _with Alex crying. "Was this my fault?" Luke shakes his head, but Reggie thinks he might see some anger there.)_ The guilt lasts for far longer than anything else, lasting long after the initial shock at dying wears off. With every sob from Alex and every shout from Luke, it feels like another dagger in his heart. _(He never should’ve said anything, shouldn’t have jinxed it, and now they were dead and they were never going to play the Orpheum.)_ He remembers the whispered panic that fills the air when everything sets in, when they realize everything that happened, when they realize that they’re _dead._

He remembers Luke’s quiet whispers of regret _(“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry mom, I’m sorry.”)_ and Alex’s loud grief _(“My sister, what about my sister, what will she say?”)_ , but he remembers staying silent. They say your first thought after death reveals what’s most important to you, so what does that say about Reggie? _(He isn’t quite sure anyone actually says that, but it seems right.)_ He remembers his flurry of thoughts _(of guilt and grief mixed with some strange sense of contentment and relief)_ and it pains him to remember how _selfish_ he was. _(“Now I won’t be caught in the middle of all their fights, now I won’t have to keep them together, now I can be with my friends all I want without feeling guilty about staying out too late, now I don’t have to be_ scared _of their shouting anymore.”)_ And he remembers not knowing what to do, remembers freezing in place and watching in horror as Alex continues to cry.

He thinks about when they all fell out of the sky, landed in their - Julie’s - studio, found out that 25 years had passed. _(“We were going to be legends…” he thinks when she tells them the truth, shock written on all of their faces.)_ He thinks about how everything, during a rare few moments, felt the same as when they were alive. He thinks about how his house is gone, everything is gone, his _life_ _(ha)_ is gone. He thinks about Luke and Alex making an attempt to cheer him up, thinks about how everything felt _good_ during that moment when they were singing together, and thinks about how good it would’ve been to perform for real. _(But they can’t and everything is gone and god, he never should’ve opened his mouth. Never should’ve made that comment, never should’ve jinxed it.)_ He thinks about their performance with Julie, thinks about how good it felt to be seen by everyone, and he’s happy for a moment, joy filling his mind. But it vanishes when they find out about Bobby _(or Trevor)_ , and for a split second, he wonders. _(“Could we have died because of Bobby? Could he have gotten us killed in order to steal our songs?” He shakes the thought off quickly - no way would he do that.)_

He thinks about meeting Caleb, about the Hollywood Ghost Club, about ditching Julie and the dance, and here comes the guilt all over again. _(“I should’ve paid attention to the time,” he mutters to himself, but Alex shoves his shoulder and tells him to knock it off. “It’s not just on you, Reg.”)_ He thinks about Luke and his family, about Unsaid Emily, about _everything_ they left behind and it _hurts._ _(It stings like a paper cut at first before becoming something that_ aches _.)_ He thinks about everything they were supposed to do, and he thinks about it even more with every jolt from the stamp. He thinks about their Orpheum performance, of breaking free from Caleb and his stupid ghost club, of the fear of not passing on, of appearing in the studio to let Julie believe they were gone. He thinks about how something compelled him to respond to her, an apology for trying to trick her being replaced by a “You’re welcome” as he lay on the ground. He thinks about how she saved them somehow, their stamps disappearing into the air, and he thinks that maybe everything will be okay. _(There is peace with them afterwards, relief and joy instead of grief and pain. Reggie knows it.)_

Some days, Reggie can’t even remember if they’d made it to the hospital before they died. But it doesn’t matter anymore - their afterlife has become so much more than their deaths.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Gonna write a Luke companion piece for this...


	2. luke

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Of all the ways Luke expected to die, food poisoning from street dogs was not one of them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Me: What if... I wrote a companion piece to this from Luke's POV  
> Jack: do itttttt  
> Me, immediately creating a new doc with the title "okay but what if luke ALSO felt guilty <3": I will. do that  
>  **Warning for descriptions of their deaths (not very graphic, but there's mention of vomit and blood)**

Of all the ways Luke expected to die, food poisoning from street dogs was not one of them. In hindsight, it should’ve been pretty obvious that it was at least an option, but there are a lot of things that should’ve been obvious in hindsight, and he doesn’t exactly have time to dwell on the past. The ambulance arrives far sooner than he expects, but maybe  it’s just that his perception of time is thrown off by the bad street dogs. It doesn’t matter because any sense of time fades with most of his senses, everything around him becoming fuzzy.

The ambulance ride is bumpy, or at least he thinks it is. It’s hard to recognize any sensation through the pain, no matter how hard he tries. There are lights above him, blurry and far too bright and giving him a headache as he tries to look around. There are shouts from the paramedics, sirens blaring, but none of the noise around him matters more than Alex’s aborted sobs and Reggie’s quiet whimpers of fear.

“It’s fine,” he tries to reassure them while pushing aside his own terror, but it comes out in a quiet gasp that makes it clear he’s trying to convince himself as much as them. “It’s fine, it’s fine, it’s fine.”

“Don’t let me die alone,” Reggie whispers, his quiet voice cutting through the cacophony around them, and Luke feels his heart clench. He reaches out to grab the younger boy’s hand, fumbling for it blindly as his eyes close of their own accord.  _ “You’re not gonna die, Reg,”  _ he wants to say, but he doesn’t know if he can promise that anymore.  _ “I’m right here,” _ he tries to say, but the words stick in his throat as he vomits up more blood.

Everything starts to fade out around him, but not before he hears Reggie’s whispered scream for Alex and sees the glazed and unfocused eyes of his best friend.  _ “Alex was the one who pointed out that the street dogs tasted wrong,”  _ he thinks as his strength and resolve begin to fade.  _ “And I was the one to suggest getting them in the first place… This is my fault. I’m sorry, Reggie.” _

Everything fades to black and he feels weightless and all of a sudden he’s floating above the ambulance and  _ god _ is that his body? He almost throws up at the sight, but a thought crosses his mind and he wonders if ghosts can even puke. “Ghosts…” Luke whispers in shock, whirling around to see if Alex or Reggie are there. “ALEX? REGGIE?” But before he can get a response, there’s a weird dropping sensation as though he’s gone over a large hill or fallen from somewhere high, and everything vanishes.

He’s in a dark room, and it takes a moment to orient himself before he spins around to see Alex on the ground, crying softly to himself. “Alex?”

“Luke?”

There’s a quiet shuffling noise behind them and a pained gasp and Luke whirls around to see Reggie standing there. His face is twisted in fear, and guilt immediately stabs at Luke’s heart. “I’m sorry,” he whispers, so quietly that he knows neither of his friends hear it.  _ I left him to die alone. _

“Was this my fault?” Luke nearly jumps at Reggie’s question, looking up to see his best friend looking at him with guilt written all over his face. He shakes his head.  _ “It wasn’t  _ your  _ fault, Reg. It was  _ mine. _ ” _

Time passes strangely in the dark room and all of a sudden they’re falling from the sky and they’re in their studio but it’s  _ different _ and there’s a girl - Julie - there and all of a sudden they’ve missed  _ 25 years. _ And  _ god _ does it feel like shit for them to have missed so much more than just the Orpheum.  _ “Did they mourn us?” _ he wonders to himself for a moment, and then all of a sudden Unsaid Emily is playing in his mind again.  _ “I’m sorry, mom and dad.” _

Performing on stage again is exhilarating, and even though it doesn’t feel like it’s been that long, he feels much more at home when he’s playing guitar in front of Julie’s school. They book a gig at Julie’s school dance, and Luke can tell that his bandmates are excited, but then they find out about  _ Bobby. _ In hindsight, going to Caleb was one of the worst ideas they’ve ever had, but how were they to know that at the time?

Time passes differently in the Hollywood Ghost Club and all of a sudden it’s  _ late _ and they’ve missed the dance and Julie’s mad at them and he can tell she’s hurt, too. The jolt they feel doesn’t even compare to the guilt plaguing him because how could he have not noticed the time earlier? Why did they think going there was a good idea?

And when they try to apologize, Julie refuses to hear them out. “‘Cause there’s only one thing that you care about, and that’s yourself,” she tells him before storming off, and he can’t be there anymore.

He poofs away to his house and  _ god _ , there they are with a birthday cake for him… “I’m sorry,” he whispers to them, knowing he can’t hear his words. “I’m sorry! I wanted to come back, I was  _ going to come back! _ ” But the guilt just intensifies and so he falls silent, watching as they light a candle, and leaning forward to blow it out.

For a while, things seem like they’re getting better and they’re  _ performing _ and everything is  _ good _ but then the jolts come back and the universe really doesn’t want them to be happy, huh? Willie tells them about Caleb and the stamps and all Luke can feel is rage and  _ grief _ because why aren’t they allowed anything good? But then Alex starts blaming himself and Luke can’t have that, especially since it was his fault that they died in the first place.

Getting into the Orpheum takes significantly less time than it did while they were alive, and it’s their _second chance_ and they can’t throw it away again. So of course Caleb throws a wrench in their plan, taking them away to his club, and forces them all to perform with him. Luke watches his friends disappear and poof away to the Orpheum and he tries to do the same but he _can’t._ _“I’m sorry, Julie,”_ he thinks before his final try, appearing on the stage with a dramatic entrance.

But they don’t cross over and  _ god _ they’re going to die all over again and it’s his fault because he was the one who said the Orpheum was their unfinished business. “I’m sorry,” he says to them as they poof into the studio, but he doesn’t think any of them hear him. Or maybe they’re angry at him for being wrong. He wouldn’t blame them - it was his fault they died in the first place, and it’s going to be his fault that they’ll die again. Until Julie saves them, somehow, and removes the stamps and everything’s okay and Luke can  _ relax _ , just a bit.

Of all the ways Luke expected to die, food poisoning from street dogs was not one of them. But he doesn’t mind - if this is what death brings, he thinks it’s perfectly fine that they missed their first Orpheum gig.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So... this was going to be the last chapter but now I'm writing one about Alex (and also a secret last chapter)...


	3. alex

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Alex had kinda wanted to live past 17.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Working title: _jack told me that alex ALSO feels g u i l t_

Alex had kinda wanted to live past 17. Y’know, get a chance to live his life, grow old, achieve at least some of his dreams, stuff like that. Unfortunately, the universe hates him and doesn’t want that to be the case. It’s the night of their _Orpheum_ performance, everything going well, and so they go and get street dogs to celebrate. And of course, that goes wrong in the worst possible way. And then they’re in the ambulance because of _fo_ _od poisoning_. For a split second, he thinks of whispering “I knew those hot dogs tasted weird,” but 1) he can barely breathe and 2) his friends look distressed enough as it is.

Dying kills him. Literally. The sounds of choking coughs and stuttering breaths from his friends haunt him just as much the pain from the food poisoning, everything overloading his senses even in the darkness of the supposed afterlife. It’s too much, it all feels like too much, and he attempts to _breathe_ , and all of a sudden it hits him that he’s _dead_. ( _“And you didn’t even get to play the Orpheum, did you?”_ whisper his thoughts and _god_ , they’re right - this was supposed to be the biggest day of their lives.)

His own shuddering breaths fill the silence of the room as he attempts to stave off a panic attack, an effort that fails miserably at Luke’s appearance in the room.

“Alex?”

“Luke?” he barely manages to choke out past his half-sobs. And then there’s another noise and _god_ , Reggie’s here too. He thinks his friends say something, exchange words, but he can barely hear them over his own panic.

“My sister, what about my sister, what will she say?” he whispers through his tears. _“She looks up to me - what will she think of her older brother dying such a pathetic death?”_

But he can hear Luke in the background, his whispered apologies making it clear that they all need comfort, and all that serves to do is make Alex feel more guilty. _“All I’m doing is crying when they’re both upset too. What kind of a friend am I? I couldn’t even be there when they_ died _.”_

But he can’t stop the tears throughout his whole time in the dark room, and when he finds out that it’s been 25 years, he feels like a terrible friend. ( _"_ _You were there for 25 years and you didn’t think about how your friends were feeling even_ once _?”_ that voice in his head hisses smugly to him, and it only makes him feel guiltier.) He resolves to help them now, no matter how, and he starts with helping cheer up Reggie on the beach. And continues with helping Julie get her spot back in the music program. And then discovers that people can _see them_ when they’re performing with her.

It’s a weird feeling, to only be seen while performing. He’s used to the crowds afterwards, to Reggie handing out free t-shirts to half the lines, used to the stares and cheers, and he can tell his friends are, too. Luke thrives on being able to connect with people, something he can’t do while dead, and Reggie thrives on being social. Alex may have never been the _most_ outgoing of them, but he was still _there_ , and it feels _wrong_ to practically vanish from existence after a show.

Meeting Willie makes it a bit better, some of the loneliness that comes with being a ghost being replaced by well, infatuation. He thinks his friends might be able to tell, just a bit, but he doesn’t care - there are other things to worry about. And the worries grow (along with other things) when they find out about Bobby. And for a moment, all he wants is to get _revenge_.

The Hollywood Ghost Club is _amazing_ while it lasts, Caleb’s show quickly rising in the ranks of “Best Things They’ve Seen Since Dying”. He only regrets not getting a chance to dance with Willie, and he hopes the other ghost doesn’t hate him for it. Except those regrets get quickly replaced by other ones when they get to the dance and they’ve missed the performance.

“I should’ve paid attention to the time,” he hears Reggie mutter quietly and nope, can’t have his friend blaming himself for something that was Alex’s fault.

“It’s not just on you, Reg,” he tells him, but he doesn’t think Reggie is listening. “Reggie-” he tries again, but his friend has poofed away, presumably to the beach. _“I need to make this right,”_ he decides to himself, glancing over at Luke. _“It was my idea to go there in the first place.”_

And the weird jolts they’re feeling don’t matter - fixing things with Julie is what’s important now. But Julie doesn’t accept their apology, and Alex feels even worse when she yells at Luke. And even worse still when they take Julie to the Pattersons’ house and see the absolute _heartbreak_ on his friend’s face. He can only hope that Julie will accept their apology after this, and the relief he feels when she does overpowers the uncertainty that’s been haunting him since the Hollywood Ghost Club.

And then Willie tells them what the jolts mean after another performance. And the guilt all comes crashing down all over again because _he_ was the one to go to Willie for help, _he_ was the one who led them to Caleb. He says as much, Luke trying to reassure him, but he thinks that his friends blame him anyway. (" _Of course they do,”_ smirks that annoying voice again. _“It_ is _your fault, after all.”_ )

It’s supposed to be a good day. Maybe not the best day of their afterlives, but a good day nonetheless. Maybe a bit bittersweet, maybe a bit melancholy, but _good_ \- they’re getting a second chance to play the _Orpheum._ ( _“Maybe this time you won’t_ die _before it happens,”_ the snide voice in his head whispers to him, and he can’t shake off the anxiety, no matter how hard he tries.)

But then Caleb’s there, and they’re in his club, and everything’s going to hell, and he can’t help but think, irrationally, that it’s all his fault. _“I was the one who introduced them to Willie - it was_ my _idea in the first place,”_ he thinks to himself, even though there are dozens of more important things to be thinking about. And then Julie saves them, poofing them on stage, and everything is _good_ until they don’t cross over. And they poof back to the studio, uncertainty and fear hanging in the air around them.

“She’s going to find us here,” he mutters, but either his friends don’t hear him, or they don’t care enough to listen. He’s right, and he can’t resist making a sarcastic comment about it, even as another jolt hits them. _“We’re going to die again,”_ he thinks as Julie begs them to go to Caleb. _“We’re going to fade from existence and it’s_ my _fault.”_

Except they don’t, and while the guilt doesn’t completely vanish (it was too close for comfort), more of it gets replaced with love and relief and _happiness._ Because they played the Orpheum, and they didn’t have to move on, and he can stay with his friends, and maybe he can see Willie again, and they’re _free_.

Alex had kinda wanted to live past 17. He’d had so many plans for the future, so many regrets, so much he’d wanted to do. Yet he can’t find it in him to be disappointed with how everything turned out overall. Sure, he’s dead, but he’s met Julie and _Willie_ and it feels like death kinda worked out for him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'd wanted to get this out a lot sooner, but a bunch of stuff came up, sorry! There'll be one final chapter after this one (unsure how long it'll take) and then I'll be working on a bunch of oneshots I've got planned! 👀

**Author's Note:**

> :) (Comments are always appreciated)


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